Maha Al-Saati
Maha Al-Saati is a Saudi Arabian filmmaker, university assistant professor and graduate of Simon Fraser University who has taught both in Vancouver, Canada and Saudi Arabia. Her academic research covers the representation of architectural spaces, education through the use of film, and the influence of religion and culture on media. She descends from Arab and Uzbek heritage.
Film style and themes
Al-Saati's style leans toward genre and fantasy filmmaking, and is inspired by fairytales, classical Disney cartoons, and 80s-90s American pop culture and music videos. She uses satire to critique consumerist culture, in addition to exploring issues of religion, gender, race, the environment and animal mistreatment films have played in genre and fantasy festivals such as Fantastic Fest, and the Avant-Garde and Genre section of the 2023 BAFICI (Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema). Her projects have also been featured in TIFF labs, where she received the TIFF Share Her Journey award, Nouveau Marché of Festival du nouveau cinéma, El Gouna Film Festival, and Red Sea International Film Festival. Her film, "Fear: Audibly" is about a girl's fear of the trumpet of doom which will end the world. The film reflects a religious period in Saudi Arabia between the 1980s and 1990s. Its dependence on sound is influenced by the Islamic restriction on visual depictions, often depending on oral narrations distributed through cassette tapes. It also features the mistreatment of stray cats. Her film Hair: The Story of Grass critiques the beauty standards regarding body hair in the Arab World, in addition to a critique of urban growth in the killing of plantation and trees. This film has won Al-Saati the Hollywood Foreign Press Association residency award of 2021.Collaborations
Al-Saati collaborated with American electronic opera composer Alice Shields on to compose the music for Cycle of Apples .Her short film "VHS Tape Replaced" is a romantic comedy exploring the 1980s Saudi Arabia and features a young black man who mimics Prince (musician) to win the love of a girl. The film also stars Saudi actress Sarah Taibah, who was awarded The Chopard Rising Star Award. The film music was composed by Austrian violinist Yury Revich and has received an Honorable Mention at Fantastic Fest.